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Ukraine protesters increase pressure, strike at other cities

Viktor Yanukovych vowed that a special parliament meeting next Tuesday will push through changes to his Cabinet, grant amnesty to activists and change harsh anti-protest legislation.

A protester wearing improvised protective gear helps a woman cross near the barricade in front of riot police in Kyiv on Friday. (Darko Vojinovic / AP)

By Maria Danilova And Yuras KarmanauThe Associated Press

Fri., Jan. 24, 2014

KYIV, UKRAINE—Opposition protesters unhappy about the outcome of negotiations with Ukraine’s government cranked up the pressure Friday, moving on several fronts to expand the areas they control, both in the capital and in other cities.

President Viktor Yanukovych, meanwhile, in a meeting with religious leaders, promised to shake up the cabinet next week, when parliament is called back into session — although the opposition has demanded its dismissal.

In a show of conciliation, the president also said he would fire all officials involved in a violent police raid on the opposition encampment on Nov. 30.

Despite those efforts to project a stance of reasonable compromise, however, the opposition doesn’t trust him, and the radicals within the opposition are no longer under the control of the mainstream politicians who have been leading the movement.

In Kyiv, protesters built new barricades and pushed out farther along side streets feeding the Maidan, or Independence Square. One group seized the Agrarian Policy Ministry building.

Elsewhere in the country, demonstrators seized administrative buildings in Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitsky, Chernovtsy and Rivne and attempted to take over the local government buildings in Zhytomyr, Poltava and Cherkasy.

Protest rallies were held in Vinnytsia, Sumy, Uzhhorod and even Donetsk, Yanukovych’s home base.

The simultaneous eruptions in provincial cities appeared to be co-ordinated. And they came even as Yanukovych’s government reiterated at the bargaining table that one of its chief demands is for protesters to leave the buildings they began occupying in November.

Protests began in late November after Yanukovych decided to shelve a long-anticipated economic agreement with the 28-nation European Union and receive a bailout from Russia instead. Russian President Vladimir Putin had pressed hard to keep Ukraine in his nation’s political and economic orbit while many urban Ukrainians had favoured closer ties with the EU.

After Thursday’s late-night negotiations between Yanukovych and his adversaries, Justice Minister Olena Lukash said opposition leaders had refused to condemn the seizure of administrative buildings. Instead, after leaving the talks, they called on the crowds of protesters to expand the occupied territory, although they said it must be by peaceful means.

Vitali Klitschko, leader of the opposition UDAR party, said he feared that without an agreement, there would be more bloodshed. Yanukovych said Friday that further talks are necessary.

Two protesters have been killed by gunfire, and an activist who was wounded was abducted from a Kyiv hospital, beaten and left to die outside the city. Medics told news agencies that at least two others have also been killed.

Yanukovych called on parliament to return from its recess to consider changes to harsh new laws restricting free speech and assembly and to take up a no-confidence vote in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. That session is now planned for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Azarov has called for foreign mediation, Bloomberg reports.

The premier said Friday that he’s speaking to Swiss President Didier Burkhalter. He told Bloomberg that Switzerland’s tradition of neutrality makes it a candidate to assist in negotiations with the opposition

“Top Swiss officials haven’t made any comments that could be considered biased,” Azarov said Friday in Davos. “Switzerland is a neutral country that currently chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. OSCE help is very important in resolving of the conflict.”

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